EAST AURORA, N.Y. (WKBW) — Phones at The Roycroft Inn in East Aurora keep ringing—but they’re completely sold out with Bills Mafia marching into town.
"As soon as Las Vegas kicked that field goal, we booked up. Our online reservations went crazy," said Daniel Garvey, Innkeeper at The Roycroft.
For a January weekend, he expected things to be slow in the hospitality industry, the Bills playoff matchup against the Patriots here at home changed things a bit.
"Our rooms are full for the whole weekend. People are absolutely thrilled to be coming into town, this is something big for the city of Buffalo and WNY," said Garvey.
They sold out at the Roycroft once before for a different Bills game, but other than that, Garvey says he can't think of a time it's happened.
Other hotels are seeing the same thing. The Hampton Inn on the 90 tells me they're pretty much booked. And Ellicott Hotels says all ten of their properties are quickly running out of space.
“I was here in the 90s when it happened before. And the entire town embraced it, but I don’t think at that point, we had the infrastructure to handle this type of influx, now we do," said Garvey.
Plus nowadays we’ve got options like Airbnb. Thousands of eyes are on their website right now, looking to book for this weekend.
Most of the options are in Buffalo, with a few in East Aurora and Hamburg.
For 2 guests, staying Saturday night ONLY:
- There are about 11 options in
- Hamburg
- Buffalo
- Elma
- Fort Erie
For 2 guests, staying Friday-Sunday:
- There are about 29 options in
- Orchard Park
- Hamburg
- Buffalo
- Elma
- Fort Erie
Last updated at 7:52, January 13.
"Bills Mafia has a pretty long reach, we’ve got people from NY, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. People from all over the place," said Garvey.
But he says it’s nothing WNY can’t handle.
"The boom in the hospitality industry that we’re experiencing in WNY has been so tremendous over the last decade that now we can handle a super bowl. We can handle something big and we’re very very proud of that," said Garvey.
Garvey says the best part about it, is everyone staying there will be happy. Sure—it’ll be zero degrees outside—but he says the WNY hospitality will keep our guests nice and warm.
